Derived from
Neon, which was developed by
Kriya Systems, and primarly
Chuck Duff. They quit doing
Neon in
1989, at which point
Bob Lowenstein, of
Yerkes Observatory at the
University of Chicago, acquired the rights to use
Neon for educational and scientific purposes, provided he change the name. So he changed it to... Yerk.
It seems to be essentially the same as
Neon though
.